Thumbnail address book for linked family of imaging appliances

摘要

An imaging appliance family is a cooperative system of two or more imaging appliances that are linked together to share images, command and control. Imaging appliances may be linked to each other by introducing the appliances to each other, establishing a communications link, and exchanging appliance information. After communications are established, appliance information is exchanged and the appliances are dynamically configured into a cooperative system. As part of the appliance information exchanged, an address and an associated image are exchanged. The image may be of the imaging appliance, the user or the location of the user or imaging appliance. When selecting another imaging appliance to communicate with, instead of identifying the imaging appliance by descriptive text, the user identifies the imaging appliance according to its identifying image. Thus, each imaging appliance includes a thumbnail associated with it that identifies it to other appliances.